Timing Is Everything
by Mingsmommy
Summary: I'm not a big believer in fate or destiny or whatever the romantics want to call it. But I am a believer in timing and our timing...is really terrible. Hotch/JJ. Spoilers through everything.


Title: Timing Is Everything

Author: mingsmommy

Pairing: Hotch/JJ

Spoilers: Everything, including scenes and the terrible knowledge that TPTB at CBS don't value strong female characters.

Rating: Oh, R?

Author's Notes: Happy belated birthday to smacky30. I love you, woman.

Thanks for the awesome quick beta, Jenn. Sorry about the exploding head thing.

* * *

The last box was full of the oddly shaped items that wouldn't fit easily into one of the others, already neatly packed and sealed. The miniature marshmallow gun Garcia had given her last Christmas was nose down next to the rounded stone sculpture of a mother and child Emily had brought her after visiting Ambassador Prentiss in Spain. A particularly frightening T-Rex shaped (including large pointed teeth) book on dinosaurs Spencer bought for Henry that she had decided her son was still a little too young for, which slid easily between an elegantly curved vase from the flowers Rossi sent for her last birthday and a red and yellow plastic VW convertible Morgan got for Henry, but she kept forgetting to take home.

JJ had, understandably, accumulated a lot of things in her time at the BAU. And though there were dozens of files stacked in various piles around the room, without her personal items the office looked bare.

The light rap of a perfunctory knock on the door causes her to look up. "Almost ready?" Hotch looks more grave than usual and it's more telling, because he's obviously trying _not_ to look grave.

She smiles, a little with sadness but mostly with affection. "This is the last of it."

He nods and watches as she straightens the stack of papers in the center of the desk. "This is all of the paperwork for the jet...pilot requests, flight manifest forms, requisitions for the kitchenette..."

"Okay." Hotch nods again, but he's looking at her face, not the folder.

"Everything else is probably easy to figure out..." She splays her hand and touches the tips to the manila folder. "But don't lose this folder."

"Right," he says and reaches out a hand.

JJ bites the corner of her lip and lifts the file and, suddenly blinking back tears, places it in Hotch's hand.

"Thanks."

She swallows and nods, unable to speak.

The silence expands, stretching between them and she can feel the weight of all the things she's never said to him, things she should have said, but the time was never right.

The sound of his deep inhale lets her know he's going to start talking about half a second before he actually does. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you, too." She's not talking about the job, but profiler or not, he doesn't seem to get that.

"You're moving into the big leagues, JJ. Media liaison for the Secretary of Homeland Security? You're not going to have time to miss us." A twitch of his lips and she thinks he's trying to smile. JJ remembers when she first came to work at the BAU, even though he'd always been somber, he at least smiled a little more often then and the smiles had been more than twitches of his lips and cheeks. But that was before they'd lost Elle, before they'd lost Gideon, before he and Haley had split, before Foyet, before all of it. Those two locks of hair that never seem to want to stay in place after five o'clock have fallen across his forehead and she has to suppress the urge to reach up and smooth them back. It's an urge she's been suppressing since her first week on the job.

"I'd rather be here..." She swallows trying to say what she means without embarrassing herself. "You...the team...you're my family."

"I know. But some people really don't take no for an answer." He does manage the smile this time, though it looks like it hurts a little. "Besides, as busy as you'll be, at least you won't be jetting across the country every other day. You'll have more time at home."

JJ gives a shaky smile of her own. "More time with Henry is the only way they could pry me away." It's not like she was given much of a choice, anyway. When a member of the Presidential cabinet says she wants you under special transfer, the higher ups at the FBI don't say anything but "Yes, ma'am" and smooth the way.

They're silent for another few minutes, then Hotch nods towards the boxes stacked by the door. "I'll get Anderson to send somebody to help you with those."

"Thanks." Her voice is rough with unshed tears and unsaid things.

He nods again and heads toward the door, briskly, but stops abruptly just before passing through. He doesn't turn back to her, but she has no trouble hearing him when he begins speaking. "I'm not a big believer in fate or destiny or whatever the romantics want to call it. But I am a believer in timing and our timing...is really terrible."

Her stomach flips and she has trouble catching her breath and she actually feels like she might pass out for a second, but she sees him begin to move out the door and finds her voice. "Hotch!" It's too loud and too urgent and not professional at all, but he stops. He still doesn't turn to face her, but she can tell from the tension riding in his shoulders and the slight tilt of his head that he's listening. "One of the reasons the time at home is a big incentive...Will left."

His head turns so he's looking at her over his shoulder. "What?"

"We split. A few months ago." She takes a hesitant step forward. "It was amicable...it just wasn't working and we both knew it. He's been really good about Henry when we're on a case but he's...um, started dating and I know having me at home more will help Henry adjust."

Slowly, Hotch turns, his face it's usual stoic mask, though his eyebrows are drawn together the way they do when he hears something he doesn't like or doesn't understand. JJ wipes her suddenly sweaty palms on her slacks and waits for him to speak.

"How long?" The question is rapid and whip sharp.

"A few months." He looks at her the way she's seen him look at Garcia when she's over-caffeinated and hopped up on cookies. "May. He moved out the first weekend in May."

"That's almost five months."

JJ nods.

His eyebrows are almost making a V. "You didn't say anything." He frowns. "You should have said something."

She shakes her hair back, desperately wanting to roll her eyes at him. She wants to say, _Really, Mr. Wait-until-I'm-served-divorce-papers-at-work?_ but instead she manages a shrug. "There were cases and you've been trying to work everything out with Jack and Jessica. It just didn't seem appropriate. I wanted to tell you...but I didn't know how. I didn't want to make it a big deal, if it wasn't...important."

His eyes blaze and for a second he looks like he's furious, but the look is gone almost instantly, his face carefully blank. "Is there any chance...you and Will could work things out?"

She shakes her head. "It's over."

His gaze is so intense, it's almost like she can feel it heating her skin. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." She gives a half-smile. "I'm sorry for Henry it didn't work out. But for me? I'm good."

Hotch pulls in what sounds like a shaky breath and nods. "Me, too."

* * *

Henry is spending the night with Will, so there aren't any nightlights and the darkness is almost total. The loss of visual magnifies every other sense: the slide of skin against skin, the groan that answers her cry, the smell of sweat and sex on the air, the tickle of a hair roughened chest against her hard nipples, the mingled gasps for air as they collapse onto the sheets, panting and altogether satisfied.

His body is bowed over hers, the majority of his weight on his knees, but still she savors the weight of him pushing her into the mattress and the small, almost mindless kisses he's placing against her neck between pants.

"Hotch?" She gasps.

"Yeah?" He manages.

"Still think our timing is terrible?" She'd laugh at her own double entendre, if she had the air for it.

"No." He moves his head and kisses her, wet and noisy and toe curling and if she hadn't just had the best orgasm of her life, she'd be ready to jump him again. Then he raises his head, eyes searching for hers in the dark and she catches the flash of his smile, his true, wide smile, and it makes her heart clench. "I think our timing is perfect."


End file.
